We nearly titled this show The Greatest American Novels before realizing, quite rightly, that that is a show that would be faulted by name. Its impossible to classify, say, the Top Ten greatest American novels. Better to have a discussion on many of the Great American Novel and novelists as a concept and see if we might quantify what makes them....great.

Joining us in studio for this delightful task was Professor Robin Grey of the University of Illinois at Chicago, Professor David Michael Kaplan and Professor Keith Mikos from DePaul.